Hinata's Christmas
by Blood-Smeared Shuriken
Summary: GaaHina. Alone for Christmas and abandoned by her family, Hinata becomes suicidal. Gaara steps in to save her from herself.


Disclaimer For the final time, I DON'T OWN NARUTO!!! GET IT INTO YOUR HEADS AND STOP ASKING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also I don't own the song love like winter which I randomly shoved in because it seemed appropriate (the whole winter thing and finding love in the snow for the second time in one of my fics – I have an obsession with winter weather I don't know why). It belongs to one of the bestest bands in the whole world – A.F.I. whom I love all to pieces and for which I am a terrible fangirl. Shame on me…

Hinata's Christmas

_Warn your warmth to turn away_

_Here it's December, everyday._

_Press your lips to the sculptures and surely you'll stay,_

_(Love like winter)_

_For of sugar and ice_

_I am made._

The snow fell outside, so soft and silent and so very cold. It was cold inside Hinata's joyless house as well, especially for Hinata herself because she hadn't bothered to put on a jersey yet, she wore only jeans and a blue t-shirt. She sat curled in one of her kitchen chairs her feet tucked under her and her eyes fixed on a blank spot on the wall.

It was Christmas today, a time for family, but Hinata had personally never felt so lonely in her life. Her father had disowned her nearly eight months ago, judging her to be a disappointment, a weak idiot, and not worthy of inheriting his legacy. This was her first Christmas alone.

She stood up and walked out the door, forgetting to put on a jacket and only just remembering to stuff her feet into worn sneakers. She didn't lock the door. Who would want to steal any of her stuff?

She walked through the crunching snow towards the forests, thinking about how she was going to have to pull herself together and put on a cheerful face to go to Naruto and Sakura's Christmas party. It would be the two's first Christmas as a married couple and Hinata felt sorry for them, in a broken hearted sort of way. She still wished that Naruto had seen how much she loved him, still wished that she had plucked up the courage when she had the chance and had told him how she felt. It was too late for any of that now, though. He was already very happily married.

She was walking through the trees now, beginning to feel the cold through her inner numbness, but not wanting to go back to her empty house. She stumbled to a halt in a snowy clearing. Staring blankly at the ground, she wrapped her bare arms around her waist and began to cry. Tears slid down her cheeks and dropped crystal from her chin. They hit the snow one the ground and began to melt it, before cooling and turning to droplets of ice. Snow landed on Hinata's hair and shoulders and melted. Before long she was drenched and shivering. She knew she should return to Konoha and get warmed up, or risk dying out here in the snow. But really, why should she? There was nothing there for her in Konoha – Naruto didn't love her, her family didn't want her and she was definitely going to fail the Jounin exams if she ever got around to taking them. She was a failure in so many ways and she just couldn't stand to see everyone else so happy around her whilst she felt so dead and frozen inside. It would be easier to just go to sleep here in the snow and never, ever wake up.

She felt her eyelids droop and fell to her knees in the snow. She tilted her head back and stared up at the wintry grey sky. Tears still streamed down her cheeks and her wet clothes froze in a thin, crackling layer of ice. She sobbed weakly, brokenly, closing her eyes against the pains of the world as tiredness pulled at her.

A sharp, angry sounding male voice jerked her out of her stupor. "What the _fuck_ do you think you're _doing_, you idiot?"

Hinata's eyes opened slowly and she stared blearily at the tall figure in front of her. Silhouetted against the strange snow-light, he seemed little more than a shadow, if a very angry one. He pulled off a long warm overcoat and wrapped it around the frozen Hyuga. As he did so, Hinata caught the fading impression of messy dark red hair and very pissed off looking aquamarine eyes. This all faded though as she fell asleep.

She was woken only a second later as she was shaken sharply. "Stay awake, fuckwit," her so called rescuer snarled and scooped her up in his arms. "If you go to sleep you won't wake up again. Ever."

Hinata struggled weakly as he stalked off through the trees towards Konoha. "Putmme downnnn…" she said, her words slurring together with her tiredness. "Don' wan' go backkkk t' Konoha."

"Too bad," he snarled in return. "I'm not exactly gonna ask your permission."

Hinata drowsed then, sliding in and out of consciousness as he carried her through the icy streets of Konoha and then up a flight of stairs. She was put down finally and vaguely heard the sound of running water.

The next thing she knew, she was being dropped into scalding hot water that sent pain screaming down all over her suddenly not-numb body. She screamed at the pain and tried to claw her way out of the water. She was held mercilessly under though until finally she stopped fighting and lay still with waves of pain still skittering across her nerves.

The worst of it was over though, except suddenly she felt a wrenching misery – she couldn't even commit suicide properly. She started to cry weakly, clinging to the arm that had held her under water. She cried in horrible tearing sobs, not even registering at first that the man had lifted her out of the water and wrapped her firstly in a towel and then in his arms. She clung to him, crying helplessly until there were no tears left and she felt only a horrible aching emptiness. She was eased down to sit on the floor for a little while as the man left the room.

When he came back, Hinata felt strong enough to lift her eyes and study his face, giving a gasp of shock as she finally recognised him. "G-G-Gaara?" she stuttered amazedly.

The tall young man from the desert simply pulled her to her feet and handed her a bundle of clothes. "Here," he said. "Temari left these here last time we were in Konoha. They'll be a bit too big, but they're better than what you have on. Get changed." And then he left the room again.

Hinata slowly changed from her drenched clothes into Temari's old stuff, which consisted of a simple black woollen jersey and t-shirt and faded blue jeans, all a little too big for her. She swayed with tiredness and nearly fell over, losing her balance when she pulled the shirt over her head. Finally she was changed and she neatly folded up her old stuff, a compulsive neat-freak to the bitter end, and stacked them in a corner, along with her drenched and thoroughly stuffed sneakers.

That done, she turned the doorknob and hesitantly stepped out of the bathroom, clinging to the door for support. Gaara was standing over near a fireplace. The instant she opened the door, he turned around and walked over to her, picking her up despite her stammered protests and carrying her over to a big double bed which sat in one corner of the room. He dumped her in it and pulled the dark blue covers up around her.

Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and glared at her. "What the hell were you thinking, going out in the snow like that?" he demanded. "You could have frozen to death."

"Th-that w-w-was kind of the pl-plan, Gaara," she said meekly, staring at the wall, the fire, the ceiling, anywhere but at Gaara. She didn't want to see his reaction. She couldn't help but feel him go very still though and dreaded the explosion that she knew was coming.

"What," he said very softly, "the fuck… did you just say?" His voice was menacing and normally it would've scared the timid Hyuga out of her wits.

But suddenly Hinata wasn't scared of him anymore. The worst he could do to her was kill her and that was what she had wanted in the first place. She sat upright and gave him a killer glare. "You heard me!" she snarled, so angry she didn't stutter in the least. "I wanted to die! But you had to come along and screw it all up! Why couldn't you have just left me alone?"

"Why?" he shouted, slamming to his feet and glaring at her. "Why the fuck would you want to throw your life away?"

"Because there wasn't any reason to go on living!!" she screamed back. "I'm a failure as a ninja, my father hates me and has disowned me, I'm so weak and pathetic and Naruto went off and married Sakura! Night after night my bed is cold and empty whilst I know that the happily married couple are all nice and snug together. And tonight I'm expected to go to their first Christmas party together and act all happy for them! Why wouldn't I want to be dead?"

He was staring at her silently, his aquamarine eyes quiet and guarded. "Do you love Naruto that much?" he asked softly. "Do you love him so much that you would throw your life away just because he chose to share his with someone other than you?"

Hinata stared at him, feeling her anger fade away as he spoke. She looked down at the dark blue covers, feeling herself lost for words. "I… W-why d-d-did you s-save me, Gaara?" she asked finally, lifting her eyes to meet his. For a long time, he didn't answer and soon Hinata got the feeling that he never would. But then, just when she had finally despaired of ever getting an answer out of him, he said, so softly she almost didn't hear it, "Just because Naruto doesn't like you doesn't mean that other people don't."

Hinata felt the world slow down around her, heard that one sentence repeated in her mind, over and over.

"_Just because Naruto doesn't like you doesn't mean that other people don't."_

She stared into guarded aquamarine eyes, knowing that her face was shocked, but not possessing the strength to school it into blankness. He gave her a bitter smile. "It's a horrible thought, isn't it?" She still couldn't say anything.

He turned to go. "You should get some sleep. You can go home tomorrow."

Hinata leaned forward to grab hold of his black shirt, to prevent him from leaving her, because she knew that once he did, he would never speak to her like this again, would never open up his heart for fear of getting hurt. She couldn't stand the idea of him never letting anyone get close to him.

He froze as he felt a tug on his shirt and turned back a little to look at her with wary jewel-like eyes. "You wanted something?" His voice was cold, but at the same time strangely vulnerable.

"D-don't l-l-leave," Hinata mumbled, feeling a blush stain her pale cheeks.

"Why not?' he demanded, trying desperately to ignore the leap of his heart. He didn't want to feel like this.

"I…I-I d-d-don't w-want y-you t-t-t…" Her voice trailed off as he frowned slightly.

"Why?"

"I…don't kn-know…"

Gaara turned around fully, gently making her let go of his shirt. He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at her. "Hinata…" he said softly but she cut him off, blushing furiously as she took a handful of his shirt and pulled him forward to press her lips lightly to his.

Gaara was a little surprised that she'd taken the initiative, being as shy as she was, but he was more than happy to follow it up. He curled a hand around the back of her neck, pushing her lips a little closer as he tilted his head for better access. He kissed her slowly, gently and so sweetly that she nearly passed out from pure bliss. He put his entire heart into that kiss, showing her how long she'd haunted his dreams, how long he'd been thinking off her. He tried to show her how she'd somehow healed his cracked heart, melted the ice that lay around his tortured soul and made him feel again.

When he eventually pulled away, her eyelids were drooping tiredly and she was breathing in short pants, a blush staining her otherwise pale cheeks. He slowly pushed her back against the pillows. "You have to sleep now," he said, forcing himself to let her go and ease away.

She saw through fading eyes that he was going to leave her and grabbed a handful of his shirt in pure panic. "Don't leave me," she yelped, terror causing her to stop stuttering. "Don't ever leave me!"

He stared at her silently with inscrutable aquamarine eyes then he smiled softly, a genuine smile, not the bloodthirsty grin she had seen before, but a real one, meant entirely for her.

"Alright," he murmured and pulled off his shoes and one of his jerseys (Gaara absolutely hated the cold – c'mon he grew up in a desert for crying out loud – so when he had gone out and seen Hinata, he'd been wearing two jerseys and that overcoat he'd wrapped her up in. His hatred of the cold was also the reason his house resembled a bake oven – it was nearly 40°C inside.) and motioned her to move over and give him some room. Then he slid into the bed beside her and gently wrapped his arms around her exhausted body.

She gave a contented sigh and snuggled into him, her arms going hesitantly around his waist. He leant his head tiredly into her shoulder and whispered goodnight.

"G-good night, Gaara," she whispered in return. "M-merry Christmas."


End file.
